Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of nosocomial antibiotic associated diarrhea and has become a major health problem in hospitals, nursing home and other care facilities. The cost to hospitals has been estimated to be 2 billion dollars in Europe and 3.2 billion dollars in the United States.
The causative agent is a gram positive, spore forming anaerobic bacterium, commonly found through out the environment but also present in the intestinal tract of 2-3% of the healthy adult population. C. difficile associated disease (CDAD) is induced by the disruption of the normal colonic flora, usually the result of the administration of antibiotics. Following exposure to C. difficile spores in the environment, the organism may colonize the intestinal mucosa where the production of disease causing toxins can result in CDAD. Disease may range from mild uncomplicated diarrhea to severe pseudomembranous colitis and toxic megacolon.
CDAD has become increasingly more problematic in health care settings. A recent study reported that 31% of hospital patients who receive antibiotics become colonized with C. difficile and 56% of those patients who become colonized go on to develop CDAD. Overall, C. difficile is responsible for 10-25% of all antibiotic associated diarrheas, 50-75% of antibiotic related colitis and 90-100% of antibiotic related pseudomembranous colitis. Treatment of CDAD involves discontinuation of the causal antibiotic followed by treatment with either metronidazole or vancomycin. Relapsing after antibiotic treatment is discontinued occurs in approximately 20% of patients, often the result of recolonization by C. difficile. 
In 2003, a C. difficile outbreak in Quebec, Canada indicated the emergence of a more virulent strain of C. difficile known as North American Phenotype 1/027 (NAP1). NAP1 has been associated with greater virulence, poor outcomes and greater morbidity and mortality rates compared to previous strains. The emergence of this strain adds to the problems already encountered in trying to contain the incidence of CDAD.
Fidaxomicin (Dificid©) for prevention of recurrent disease is the first in a new class of narrow spectrum macrocyclic antibiotic drugs (Revill, P.; Serradell, N.; Bolos, J. (2006). “Tiacumicin B: macrolide antibiotic treatment of C. difficile-associated diarrhea”. Drugs of the Future 31 (6): 494-497). It is a fermentation product obtained from the actinomycete Dactylosporangium aurantiacum subspecies hamdenesis. Fidaxomicin is non-systemic, meaning it is minimally absorbed into the bloodstream, it is bactericidal, and it has demonstrated selective eradication of pathogenic Clostridium difficile with minimal disruption to the multiple species of bacteria that make up the normal, healthy intestinal flora. The maintenance of normal physiological conditions in the colon can reduce the probability of Clostridium difficile infection recurrence (Johnson, Stuart (2009-06). “Recurrent Clostridium difficile infection: a review of risk factors, treatments, and outcomes”. Journal of Infection 58 (6): 403-410). Although it is thought, that the introduction of this new class of antibiotic drug will improve the treatment of CDAD, there is still a medical need for a preventative drug, in particular for high risk patients such as the elderly and the immunocompromised patients.
CDAD is the result of the actions of two exotoxins produced by C. difficile, toxin A and toxin B (also referred to as CTA and CTB, respectively). Both toxins are high molecular weight (˜300 kDa) secreted proteins that possess multiple functional domains (Voth D E and Ballard J D, Clinical Microbiology Reviews 18:247-263 (2005)). The N-terminal domain of both toxins contains ADP-glucosyltransferase activity that modifies Rho-like GTPases. This modification causes a loss of actin polymerization and cytoskeletal changes resulting in the disruption of the colonic epithelial tight junctions. This leads to excessive fluid exudation into the colon and a resulting diarrhea. The central domain contains a hydrophobic domain and is predicted to be involved in membrane transport. The C-terminal domain of both toxins contain multiple homologous regions called repeating units (RUs) that are involved in toxin binding to target cells (Ho et al, Howell 102:18373-18378 (2005)). The repeating units are classified as either short (21-30 amino acids) or long (˜50 amino acids). Repeating units combine to form clusters, each usually containing one long and 3-5 short repeating units. The full length toxin A possesses 39 repeating units (ARUs) organized into 8 clusters (Dove et al. Infect. Immun. 58:480-488 (1990), while the full length toxin B contains 24 repeating units (BRUs) organized into 5 clusters (Barroso et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 18:4004 (1990); Eichel-Streiber et al., Gene 96:107-113 (1992)).
A number of studies, from both animal models and from the clinic, have indicated a role for anti-toxin antibody in the protection from C. difficile associated disease. Hamsters immunized with formalin inactivated toxin A and toxin B generated high levels of anti-toxin antibody and were protected from a lethal challenge of C. difficile bacteria (Giannasca P J and Warny M, Vaccine 22:848-856 (2004)). In addition, passive transfer of mouse anti-toxin antibody protected hamsters in a dose dependent manner. Kyne L et al. (The Lancet 357:189-193 (2001)) reported that the development of an anti-toxin A antibody response during an initial episode of CDAD correlated with protection against disease recurrence.
The determinants recognized by protective anti-toxin antibodies have been localized to the C-terminal domain containing the reacting units which function as the receptor binding domain. Initially, Lyerly et al. (Current Microbiology 21:29-32 (1990)) revealed that the toxin A C-terminal domain containing 33 repeating units is capable of inducing the production of neutralizing anti-toxin antibody and may protect from C. difficile infection. In this study hamsters were injected subcutaneously with the purified recombinant polypeptide multiple times prior to challenge with the bacteria, however only partial protection was achieved. Another study (Ryan et al., Infect. Immun. 65:2941-49 (1997)) showed that the isolated polypeptide containing 720 amino acid residues from the C-terminus of CTA and the secretion signal of E. coli hemolysin A (expressed in Vibrio cholerae) induced protective systemic and mucosal immunity against a small dose of CTA in the rabbit CDAD model.
It was also reported that antibody response against the C-terminal domain of both toxin A and B was necessary to achieve full protection (Kink and Williams, Infect. Immun. 66:2018-25 (1998), U.S. Pat. No. 5,736,139 (1998)). This study revealed that the C-terminal domain of each toxin was most effective in generating toxin-neutralizing antibodies. It demonstrated the effectiveness of orally delivered avian antibodies (antitoxin) raised against C-terminal domain of CTA and CTB in the hamster lethal model. The results also indicate that the antitoxin may be effective in the treatment and management of CDAD in humans. In another study, human anti-toxin A and B monoclonal antibodies were reported confer protection against C. difficile induced mortality in hamsters (Babcock et al., Infect. Immun. 74:6339-6347 (2006)). Protection was only observed by antibodies directed against the receptor binding domain of either toxin and enhanced protection was observed following treatment with both anti-toxin A and B antibodies.
On the other hand, Ward et al. (Infect. Immun. 67: 5124-32 (1999)) considered 14 repeating units from C. difficile toxin A (14 CTA) for the study of adjuvant activity. The repeating units were cloned and expressed either with the N-terminal polyhistidine tag (14 CTA-HIS) or fused to the nontoxic binding domain from tetanus toxin (14 CTA-TETC). Both fusion proteins administered intranasally generated anti-toxin A serum antibodies but no response at the mucosal surface in mice. Enhanced systemic and mucosal anti-toxin A responses were seen following co-administration with E. coli heat-labile toxin (LT) or its mutated form LTR72. Based on the data, Ward et al. suggested using non-toxic 14 CTA-TETC fusion as a mucosal adjuvant in human vaccine directed against clostridial pathogens.
Recent biochemical studies on the repeating unit domains of C. difficile toxins has looked at the minimal sequence requirements for forming stable tertiary structure (Demarest S J et al., J. Mol. Bio. 346:1197-1206 (2005)). An 11 repeating unit peptide derived from toxin A was found with a correct tertiary structure but 6 and 7 repeating units from toxins A and B did not. The correctly folded 11 repeating unit segment was found to maintain the receptor binding property. A second study examined the functional properties of toxin A fragments containing 6, 11 or 15 repeating units (Dingle T, Glycobiology 18:698-706 (2008)). Only the 11 and 15 repeat units were capable of competitively inhibiting the toxin neutralizing ability of anti-toxin A antibody. While all 3 fragments were found to have hemagglutinating activity, the longer fragments displayed higher hemagglutinating activity than the shorter ones. The data indicates that toxin receptor binding domain structure and immunogenicity are retained in domain fragments that contain greater than 11-14 repeats.
Thomas et al. (WO97/02836, U.S. Pat. No. 5,919,463 (1999)) also disclosed C. difficile toxin A, toxin B and certain fragments thereof (e.g., C-terminal domain containing some or all of the repeating units) as mucosal adjuvants. They showed that intranasal administration of CTA or CTB significantly enhanced mucosal immune response to a heterologous antigen such as Helicobacter pylori urease, ovalbumin, or keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) in multiple mouse compartments and was associated with protection against the challenge with Helicobacter. Additionally, the adjuvant activity of a toxin A fusion protein was evaluated: 794 C-terminal amino acid residues of CTA comprising ARUs (toxin A repeating units) were fused to glutatione-S-transferase (GST) and resulted polypeptide GST-ARU was expressed in E. coli. This study demonstrated significant enhancement of immune response by GST-ARU to co-administered antigens in serum and mucosal secretions.
All of these studies suggest potential use of a non-toxic, recombinant protein comprising either C. difficile toxin A, or toxin B, or fragments thereof, or their combinations for producing an active vaccine against CDAD. Currently, no vaccine against C. difficile is commercially available, although a candidate vaccine consisting of formalin-detoxified entire toxins A and B has been evaluated in human phase I and IIa studies. It is reported that parenteral immunization with this vaccine induces anti-toxin IgG and toxin-neutralizing antibody responses (Kotloff K L et al., Infect. Immun. 69:988-995 (2001); Aboudola S et al., Infect. Immun. 71:1608-1610 (2003)).
The literature further indicates that the construction of a recombinant fusion protein containing both toxin A and B receptor binding domains of C. difficile, either in their entirety or fragments thereof, would be an efficient and commercially viable approach for vaccine development. Such an approach has been attempted as a two part fusion protein of a 700 base pair fragment of toxin A and a 1300 base pair fragment of toxin B by Varfolomeeva et al. (Mol. Genetics, Microb. and Virol. 3:6-10 (2003)). This approach has also been described by Belyi and Varfolomeeva (FEMS Letters 225:325-9 (2003)) demonstrating construction of the recombinant fusion protein consisting of three parts: two C-terminal domains composed of repeating units of C. difficile toxin A and toxin B followed by the fragment of Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin Cpe. The fusion protein was expressed in E. coli but the product was accumulated in inclusion bodies and was not stable. Moreover, the yield of pure product achieved in this study (50 μg per 100 ml culture) was considerably low.
Wilkins et al. (WO 00/61762, U.S. Pat. No. 6,733,760 (2004)) also described the use of recombinant C. difficile toxin A and B repeating units (recombinant ARU and recombinant BRU) and their polysaccharide conjugates for the preparation of a vaccine against CDAD. The resulting recombinant ARU protein comprised 867 amino acid residues while the recombinant BRU protein contains 622 amino acids in length. Unlike the previously mentioned studies, this work demonstrated high-level expression of recombinant ARU and BRU soluble proteins in E. coli. Mice vaccinated with recombinant ARU and with polysaccharide-conjugated recombinant ARU both mounted a high level of neutralizing anti-toxin A antibodies and were highly protected against lethal challenge with C. difficile toxin A. In addition, Wilkins et al. suggested using a recombinant fusion protein consisting of both ARU and BRU for the preparation of a vaccine.
There is an interest in developing a vaccine against CDAD. A recombinant fusion protein consisting of ARU and BRU may be potentially useful as a vaccine.